Don't let JOHN MADDEN kid you. This self-described "big, fat, redheaded" guy is making millions as a professor, giving weekly lectures on America's most bewildering game

Huge celebrity, accompanied by great wealth, can occasionally befall an odd character, especially when television is involved. But has there ever been a more unlikely national figure than John Madden, the animated elephant who used to coach the Oakland Raiders and now instructs the country in its most bewildering sport? Though he won more than 100 National Football League games in only ten years and directed his team to a Super Bowl victory in 1977, Madden was obscured in Oakland by autocratic Owner Al Davis.

Retiring abruptly in 1979 (at just 42), not really because of his ulcer, not precisely because...